Filling the teacher gap, at a cost | Morning Newsletter
And deed delays persist at Sheriff’s Office
The Morning Newsletter
Start your day with the Philly news you need and the stories you want all in one easy-to-read newsletter
Welcome to a sunny Sunday. The high will be near 54.
Wondering what winter has in store for the Philly region? Here’s what forecasters say about our snow chances.
One in five Philadelphia students are taught by “emergency-certified” teachers. Today’s main read explores how this practice comes at a cost.
And we look into whether the Sheriff’s Office has made progress in processing deeds from auctions, four months after pledging to take “corrective action.”
— Paola Pérez (morningnewsletter@inquirer.com)
P.S. The link to this story was missing in yesterday’s newsletter, so here it is now: Gov. Josh Shapiro announced he would redirect $153 million in federal highway funds to SEPTA, averting a significant fare increase planned for Jan. 1.
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The Philadelphia School District has more than doubled its hiring of emergency teachers, or educators who lack full certification.
The practice of hiring these educators allows the district to staff more classrooms amid a shortage of teachers. But it also comes at a cost to students, teachers, and the district.
✏️ How it works: Pennsylvania issues emergency certificates when districts can’t find “a fully qualified and properly certified educator holding a valid and active certificate,” according to the state Department of Education.
✏️ Changing rates: In 2021-22, for the first time ever, the state issued more emergency-teaching certificates than it did full certificates.
✏️ Disparities in education: Students of color and students from economically disadvantaged homes typically get higher percentages of emergency-prepared teachers.
✏️ What the district is saying: Kaylan Connally, chief talent officer, called emergency-certified educators an “important source of new teachers.” Just 17% of emergency teachers go on to become fully certified educators.
Join Philly schools reporter Kristen Graham inside one Philly elementary school where emergency-certified teachers are welcomed, and dive into the benefits and challenges of hiring these instructors.
Philadelphia Sheriff Rochelle Bilal’s office acknowledged there was a major problem with delays in recording deeds after property auctions. They promised to fix it, but the process remains broken, and perhaps has gotten worse for some buyers.
After properties are auctioned off at sales, Bilal’s office is not finalizing them until many months later.
The ongoing problem has left some winning bidders unable to take possession of buildings and land for up to a year. This means they can’t develop vacant lots, or renovate, demolish, rent, or resell empty homes.
William Bender and Ryan W. Briggs cover the latest on this ongoing issue.
What you should know today
Mayor Cherelle L. Parker on Friday night reached agreement on her proposed one-year contract with the city’s biggest union for municipal workers, ending a monthslong standoff and averting a strike that could have halted city services like trash collection.
Parker’s administration also announced that it is establishing 11 “mini City Halls” across Philly where residents can request services like graffiti removal or traffic calming, part of the mayor’s vow to make city functions more accessible.
A 48-year-old man was killed after he allegedly tried to steal a car and was shot in the head by the vehicle’s owner Friday afternoon in the city’s Frankford section, police said.
Miles Pfeffer, the man accused of shooting and killing Temple University Police Officer Christopher Fitzgerald in 2023, was stabbed multiple times in the Curran-Fromhold Correctional Facility, where he has been held awaiting his murder trial.
Authorities are looking for a man with a “heavy build” who they say shot another man in a dispute on a SEPTA bus in North Philadelphia on Friday night.
Seven Free Library of Philadelphia branches are now indefinitely closed because of heating issues, in what a library spokesperson called “an unusual confluence of events.”
New Jersey prosecutors balked at George E. Norcross III’s efforts to recast tactics he used to prevail in Camden waterfront land deals as nothing more than “hardball business negotiations” and urged a judge to allow a jury to decide whether the Democratic power broker had broken the law in his pursuit of lucrative property.
Mazzoni Center claims a rogue employee took out high-interest debt. Now Philadelphia’s largest LBGTQ health agency is being choked by liens.
Philadelphia courts are on track to see 600 new medical malpractice cases this year, after a rule change at the beginning of last year allowed more cases to be filed in the city rather than the county where the incident occurred.
A new apartment building planned for South Broad Street is trying to set itself apart in a Philly apartment market awash in studios and small one-bedroom units.
❓Pop quiz
Which famous mom is making her acting debut in two new Philly-set Hallmark holiday movies?
A) Tina Knowles
B) Maggie Baird
C) Donna Kelce
D) Mandy Teefey
Think you know? Check your answer.
🧩 Unscramble the anagram
Hint: Left fielder for the Phillies
SUSHI TANYA
Email us if you know the answer. We’ll select a reader at random to shout out here.
Cheers to Jan Dalina who correctly guessed Saturday’s answer: The Philly Specials. The musical Eagles are planning to raise enough money with their new Eagles Christmas album to give every student in the School District of Philadelphia — all 116,000 of them — a gift this holiday season.
Our pop critic Dan DeLuca reviewed one song a week ahead of the album’s release on Friday. Here’s the full list.
Cheers to Shelbie and Kara, who got married immediately after completing the Philadelphia Half Marathon.
Marathon organizers are expecting the largest full-weekend turnout in the organization’s history.
What you’re saying about ...
On Saturday, I asked if you consider Center City part of South Philly. Here’s a sample of your responses, edited for clarity.
Patricia DeLacey: I am from South Philly and I consider South Philly to begin at Bainbridge Street.
Dawn Poole: Absolutely not. That’s nonsense. My husband points out, “That’s why it’s called CENTER City.”
Nora Monroe: Center City is definitely not a part of South Philly! They are two distinctly different communities. Not even close! I have lived in Center City for several decades and do not plan to live anywhere else. South Philly has its charms, and great food, but it is a different world from CC.
Chantele Anthony: When I was younger, South Philly ended at Lombard St. But, as time went on and developers came into town, South Philly became even smaller. Wanting to attract suburbanites, different parts of my hometown are now called, “Graduate Hospital area” or “Center City East or West.” The beauty that was South Philly on either side of the “tracks” is now no longer. “I wish those days could come back once more because I loved them so.”
Lars W.: The historic boundaries of Philadelphia as laid out by surveyor Thomas Holm in 1682 was river to river, Vine Street to Cedar (South) Street. The area below South Street is where South Philly begins. Historically this area contained several different Townships.
When Philadelphia County subsumed the original boundaries of The City of Philadelphia in the 1850s, the original city area became the “downtown,” and eventually became what we call it now, “Center City.” Thus, technically “Center City” is an area separate from South Philadelphia. They do not overlap.
However, the Center City District, founded in the early 1990s, has, for their own statistical purposes, considered the Center City area to sometimes include a zone bounded by as far as Girard Avenue to the north and Snyder Avenue to the south. So, sometimes people confuse these boundaries with the historical boundaries.
🎶 Today’s track goes like this: “I let the dust settle / Let the grapes become wine.”
👋🏽 Thanks for spending part of your morning with The Inquirer. Take care out there.